fast forward to March. MIA is livid. "We know my new album "/\ \/ () /\/ | /\ D \/" is the real number one this week! James Blake is giving away copies with his tour with no requirement to redeem! | I spoke to him. He knows he doesn’t have the #1 album this week. I love my fans for the #1 album in BRITAIN!"

I was upgrading my PSU, and one of two things I fucked up all my drives by using old cables or the old mechanical drive shorted and fucked up the other two solid states that they were daisy chained to it. Now nothing besides my Blu ray drive is being recognized in bios

The first one that comes to mind is Kids See Ghosts by Ye and Cudi. I really love this cover and I think it's beautiful. However, the Photoshop job on the 2D characters looks horrid. The character on the left is of low resolution, and the way the character on the right is placed on top of the cloud looks terrible. Overall I still think the cover looks great and it's one of my favorites of the year, but it could've been even better. Just don't look too closely at your vinyl copy.

I did not like this album at all. After loving Forest Hills Drive and even liking For Your Eyes Only a lot I was really looking forward to another Cole project. Sadly KOD didn't deliver for me. I thought it was boring and I've only listened to it a handful of times. However, I think that the artwork is beautiful. It's colorful like KSG and the composition is great. And it fits the theme of the album, which is always a plus.

Not even an album cover, but I really, really like this one. Again; it's colorful and the composition is great, but there's something to this one that's just really appealing and pleasing to the eye. Way better than Tyler's other single covers. It's now Flower Boy artwork, but it's great nonetheless.

An odd one, but a great one imo. I don't think anyone will have this in their covers of the year list, but I love it. The combination of black/white/yellow looks great and in combination with the photo makes the cover shine with simplicity. It fits most of the demos we hear on the album, and actually features Mac himself, unlike the original This Old Dog cover, which was Mac's first album cover not to feature a photograph of him (not counting the LE artwork).

A cover that most people here won't recognize, since it's an album by a Dutch artist. The record itself is not as good as his other album he dropped this year; Zwart (which won an award for best Dutch album of the year), but I just love the picture they used for this. I honestly can't even explain why. I just think it looks great. Definitely a strange one, but one of my favorites nonetheless.

Another Dutch album, this time by Ares. A really talented, but super underrated rapper/singer/producer who went indie this year. Alice is his first album he releases without a label, and where he has full creative control over the music, music videos, artwork etc. I think it's a beautiful photograph that fits the record, which is really, really good, really well.

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Honorable mention:Frank Ocean - Endless (Go find this one on the Hub)

This album did not come out this year, but the vinyl record did. Originally sold on Cyber Monday of 2017, this record didn't arrive in the hands of fans until April(?) of 2018. This might be my favorite vinyl release of the year. The artwork looks great, inside and outside, and the records themselves look absolutely stunning. It's a 2LP release, with music on one side and artwork etched in the other side. The only complaint I have is that the sleeves are made of the thinnest paper ever produced, resulting in mine being ripped to shreds before even arriving at my house. Seeing as it's more the overall package that makes this one special, and it's not really a 2018 release, I made it a honorable mention.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and these are just covers of projects I've listened to this year, but here's a selection of my absolute favorites. Some of 'em are nothing special. Others probably don't look good at all to some people, but I think these are great.

I'm curious to see what you guys think are the best covers of the year.

Part of the reason I like that JID album is that it's such a mixtape format. It doesn't even pretend to have a concept it goes from a song for the ladies to some late 00s banger. Also, Skrawberries is awesome. I guess he could push it further next time, but it's nice to have an album to easily throw on. Tiied is the weakest track for sure.

probably. i've heard comedians talk about how college shows are a bit more lucrative than comparably sized venues since student unions have annual budgets they need to spend by the end of the year anyway. i'd imagine the same principle applies to musicians too